1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll collection apparatus which is installed jointly with an electric toll collection system (ETC) provided at tollgates of toll roads for the toll collection through a wireless communication with an onboard unit equipped to mobile bodies such as vehicles and the like, and a toll collection method of the toll collection apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the technology so far available, in the case of an electric toll collection system (ETC) utilizing a wireless communication technology, all vehicles including ETC vehicles are once stopped and tolls are collected at exit lanes regardless of difference in manned/unmanned or private operations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,872,525 discloses a toll collection systems. And, with the increase of the ETC utilization factor, it becomes possible to further increase the utilizing factor of toll collection process when the toll collection system is rather operated only for the full non-stop ETC private operation.
However, when the full non-stop ETC private operation is put for the use as a result of the spread of the ETC after the once stop type ETC that is examined at present is fixed, it is expected that some of vehicles force their way through the exit lane if tolls are not properly collected at the ETC private non-stop exit lanes and these vehicles may be processed as forced passing vehicles. In this case, there are some fear that erroneously processed vehicles and erroneously entered non-ETC vehicles may be regarded as forced passing vehicles even when they have no evil intention.
As described above, in the wireless toll collection system (ETC) utilizing the wireless communication technology, there was such a problem that when a full non-stop ETC private operation is provided for the use as a result of the spread of the ETC and tolls are not properly collected at the ETC private non-stop exit lanes, the vehicles of which tolls are not properly collected are processed as forced passing vehicles and erroneously processed vehicles and erroneously entered non-ETC vehicles may be regarded as forced passing vehicles even when they have no evil intention.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a toll collection apparatus that is jointly installed to and operated with a wireless toll collection system (ETC) and a toll collection method for positively collecting tolls of vehicles from which tolls could not be collected properly and preventing the generation of forced passing of tollgates.
According to the present invention, a toll collection apparatus that is installed jointly with a wireless toll collection system for toll collection. The toll collection apparatus comprises receiving means for receiving vehicle data of vehicles from which a toll could not be collected by the wireless toll collection system; processing means for performing a toll collecting process from the vehicle corresponding to the vehicle data received by the receiving means; and transmission means for transmitting the vehicle data of the vehicle to the wireless toll collection system when completing the toll collection process by the processing means.
Further, according to the present invention, a toll collection method of a toll collection apparatus that is jointly installed to a wireless toll collection system for the toll collection is provided. The toll collection method comprises the steps of receiving vehicle data of a vehicle from which a toll could not be collected by the wireless toll collection system, and transmitting the vehicle data of the vehicle to the wireless toll collecting system when the toll collection was made from the vehicle corresponding to the vehicle data received in the receiving way.